I don’t think anyone thinks we’ll have the answer to everything, particularly scientists. But that doesn’t mean that you fill in those gaps with “therefore, God.”
More than one smart guy has observed that true learning is the act of discovering the greater extent of how much one does not know. It is absurd to imagine that we can ever answer every question, that at least gives us more to reach for. I mean, pat answers are boring, intriguing questions are a source of inspiration.
I’m inclined to say that you study that gap. You search for evidence, learn as much as you can and discuss that gap. When that answer evades you, I say trust your gut.
Each of the apostles (save John, son of Zebedee, who died a natural death in exile) died horrible, excruciating deaths. They died as martyrs, for preaching the word of Jesus.
And they each died for their belief in a historical event. They were there. They saw whether it happened. Would they have struggled for so long preaching the gospel, spreading it as far west as Spain and as far east as India (as Thomas is purported to have reached), and would they have put themselves in a position to be brutally murdered for it, if they knew what they were saying was a lie?
Based on this point, it would seem that the followers of Jim Jones and the Heaven’s Gate cult members must have been following Truth when they died.
Does the typical suicide bomber prove the validity of (their version of) Islam?
People choose to die for any number of reasons following any number of beliefs. Their choice of deaths speaks only to their mindset at the time of death and not to the accuracy of their beliefs.
Is there a name for this fallacy? And it is one. People have died for absolutely incredibly silly reasons fully believing that they were dying for something greater. Joseph Smith (more than likely knowing that Mormonism was a long con as he was the one who made it up) died because of his Mormonism. The comet cult people died of self-poisoning, completely and consciously aware that they were going to die. The People’s Temple committed mass suicide for their faith.
Just because people die for it doesn’t mean it’s true.
ETA: Or, what tom said five minutes before I hit the button…
I made no links to my site nor claims from my site. I still love you. Love is God and God is Love. It is so simple that only the erudite miss it.
And how, exactly do we know that they did any such thing? How much evidence is there that they even existed?
And as already said, people get themselves killed for stupid and evil reasons all the time.
Nor did I say you had. What I said was that if you continue to pick fights by making fatuous claims accusing other people of having failed to read something when you have no idea what they have or have not read, you are behaving as a jerk. Your nonsense about “erudite” people is the same sort of sly attempt to insult people while pretending that you are not doing so.
[ /Moderating ]
Why are you so sure we won’t? How much do you understand about what we do know and the progress on what we don’t? True, we can never know that our understanding is complete (and it goes without saying that any individual can’t know everything that we as a species know) but what do you think is the obstacle that will prevent us from discovering anything and everything that can be discovered? It may be arrogant to say that we will someday know everything about the universe, but it being arrogant to claim something doesn’t mean that the claim is false. I don’t know if we will ever understand everything, but I think the only real obstacle is how long we will last. If we survive long enough and have records of our past, I think we’ll eventually learn everything. What we know now is pretty amazing, as is what we don’t know.
Seems to me that’s exactly what scientists do. Studying the “gap” and trusting their gut that something needed to account for the mass of the universe yielded the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle (as evidence suggests). To compare and contrast, what has been religion’s most common answer as a way of explaining the various gaps of human knowledge? It’s always the same answer: faith and god. That may be enough for some, thankfully not for others.
As to your inquiry of why it’s hard to admit we may never fully understand the universe we live in - I think many rational people will freely agree that in their life time they will almost certainly not know all the answers, and that’s OK. The question may be asked, why does religion insist on providing the same shallow answer to an ever changing array of questions?
If a million people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Argument from ignorance. Why is it so hard to hard to admit that we might understand the universe? What exactly would prevent us from doing so?
Unsupported beliefs.
No.
You decompose and cease to be. There is no objective evidence to think otherwise.
Faith, hope, wishes, beliefs etc.-these are different methods of dealing with reality, but the greatest amount of any and/or all of the former cannot change the slightest amount of the latter. In fact, the entire world could believe that the coin on my desk is a quarter, but I still won’t be able to get a grape gumball out of the machine down at the laundromat with it.
Well logically we cannot fully understand concepts like infinity due to many glaring contradictions. Yet, there it is smacking us right in the face. We have the Big Bang theory, but what came before that? That question never ends. I’m not trying to doubt science here, as it’s the only way well ever get anywhere. I’m just being realistic. Alan Smithee, I hope that answers your question too.
Now, bear with me as I’m about to go off on a tangent. I just want to explore this concept further. 
So if you concede the fact that we will never understand reality, but still know it to be true by virtue of experience, what is illogical about faith? I would say the opposite seems to not make sense as it should imply “nothingness.”
FTR, I only believe in the soul and that what you do in this life matters in some way. But I consistently see that people discredit faith, and many of their points are valid. But I’m curious, what does science tell us about faith? I get that if I’m making the claim that I have “faith” in my soul, that I should be the one to back that up. Ill freely admit that I can’t.
What can you show me, by the way of the scientific method, that faith is in fact false?
This is true. But what would you say about the “placebo effect?” People take a sugar pill and get better. Pure faith. This is what I’m talking about when I’m asking what studies have been done to test faith.
Many diverse deities in the image. Caption:
Pick one and be ready to face the consequences if you choose wrong.
Placebos work sometimes in some situations for some types of ailments, and there are real reasons why if you care to look just below the serface.
Faith in what? Are you talking about faith backed by evidence, or blind faith?
Why would delusion need to be “explained away”?
Rationality and skepticism does not require you to believe that all questions will be answered. What it requires you to do is be comfortable with uncertainty.
No, when the answer evades you, you defer reaching a conclusion. There are plenty of things you’ll never know. There’s no reason to “trust your gut” on questions like these.